Chapter 7 - Project Second Heart
The FBI sealed two floors of St. Vincent Medical Center by sunset.
Maya knew almost nothing.
Emily insisted on that.
Her daughter had just survived internal bleeding and surgery.
She did not need to learn that a dead child's cells might have been growing inside her for fifteen years.
But Maya had never been easy to fool.
Especially now.
She woke around seven and looked at Emily.
"Everyone keeps lying."
Emily's heart sank.
"I'm not lying."
"You're not telling me."
"There's a difference."
"Not when it's my body."
Emily looked toward the ICU doorway.
Agent Cole stood outside speaking with Dr. Harris.
Maya followed her gaze.
"Is Dad arrested?"
Emily hesitated.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because of what happened when you were a baby."
Maya looked down.
"So he did something."
"Yes."
"What?"
Emily pulled the chair closer.
"He allowed you to participate in medical research without telling me."
Maya absorbed that.
"What kind?"
"Experimental."
"Was the thing inside me from that?"
Emily couldn't lie.
"Yes."
Maya's eyes filled.
"Did he know?"
"Some of it."
"Did he get paid?"
Emily closed her eyes briefly.
Maya understood.
"Oh."
That single sound contained more heartbreak than screaming could have.
Emily touched her hand.
"Maya."
"How much?"
"That doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
"Seventy-five thousand."
Maya turned her face away.
Emily waited.
Eventually Maya whispered, "That's why he paid off the house."
Emily had wondered the same thing.
"Maybe."
"He always told me I should be grateful for everything he gave me."
Emily's eyes burned.
"I'm sorry."
Maya looked back.
"For what?"
"For not seeing it."
Maya's voice softened.
"You believed me eventually."
Eventually.
The word hurt.
Emily squeezed her hand.
"I should have believed you sooner."
Maya looked toward the ceiling.
"What's inside me?"
Emily hesitated.
"Doctors are still figuring that out."
"Is it cancer?"
"They don't think so."
"Then what?"
Before Emily could answer, Dr. Harris entered.
He carried no chart.
That alone made Emily nervous.
"How are you feeling?"
Maya frowned.
"Like everybody asks questions and won't answer mine."
Dr. Harris almost smiled.
"Fair criticism."
He sat.
"You have abnormal tissue growing inside a capsule near your abdominal wall. We believe it came from an experimental procedure performed when you were an infant."
Maya stared.
"Can you remove it?"
"Eventually, we hope."
"Why not now?"
"It's connected to important blood vessels."
"Could it kill me?"
Emily's breath caught.
Dr. Harris took his time.
"It became dangerous because it started bleeding. We stopped that. Right now you're stable."
"That's not what I asked."
Dr. Harris looked at Emily.
She nodded.
He turned back to Maya.
"If it begins bleeding heavily again, yes. It could be life-threatening."
Maya nodded slowly.
"Okay."
Emily stared at her.
"Okay?"
Maya shrugged weakly.
"I've known something was wrong for months. At least now everyone else knows."
Dr. Harris left ten minutes later.
Agent Cole entered.
He asked Emily to step outside.
"We found files."
"Where?"
"The storage facility where Robert was held."
"About Maya?"
"About Project Second Heart."
Emily crossed her arms.
"Tell me."
Cole opened a tablet.
"Twenty-three infant subjects were enrolled between 2008 and 2012."
Emily felt sick.
"Maya was one."
"Subject seventeen."
Protocol Seventeen.
Emily remembered the message.
"How many are alive?"
"According to the records, nine reached age ten."
"And now?"
"We're locating them."
"Nine."
Cole nodded.
"Seven are confirmed alive."
Emily looked through the glass at Maya.
"What happened to the others?"
"Some developed immune complications. Some experienced organ failure."
Emily swallowed.
"And the tissue?"
"Different subjects received different experimental material."
"What did Maya receive?"
Cole's jaw tightened.
"A structure derived from cardiac and neural precursor cells."
Emily stared.
"Heart and brain tissue?"
"Primitive cells, not functioning organs."
"Then why call it Second Heart?"
"We think Voss hoped the implants could eventually mature into replacement systems."
"For his dead son?"
"Possibly."
Emily turned.
"You're avoiding something."
Cole remained silent.
"Agent Cole."
He showed her a file.
A photograph appeared.
A boy with brown hair sat beside Malcolm Voss.
Lucas.
Below the photograph were medical diagrams.
Then a page titled DONOR RECONSTRUCTION MODEL.
Emily didn't understand most of it.
But she understood the final line.
Host seventeen demonstrates highest persistence rate.
Maya.
Emily looked up.
"What does persistence mean?"
Cole scrolled.
"Voss wasn't simply trying to preserve tissue."
"What was he trying to do?"
"We're still interpreting the research."
"Interpret faster."
Cole's eyes met hers.
"He believed memory might be partially encoded through biological patterns outside the brain."
Emily stared.
"That's impossible."
"Most scientists would agree."
"Then why does it matter?"
"Because Voss didn't."
Emily remembered Maya's words before surgery.
There was a man.
The one Dad kept meeting.
A chill traveled through her.
"Maya said something before she passed out."
"What?"
"She said there was a man Dad kept meeting."
Cole frowned.
"Had she seen Voss before?"
"I don't know."
Emily returned to Maya's room.
Her daughter appeared asleep.
Emily sat beside her.
After a moment, Maya opened her eyes.
"Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"I remembered something."
Emily leaned closer.
"What?"
"When I was little."
"How little?"
"Maybe five."
Maya frowned as though following something distant.
"I woke up in a room that wasn't ours."
Emily stopped breathing.
"There was an old man."
"What old man?"
"He told me to say a name."
Emily's fingers tightened.
"What name?"
Maya looked confused.
"Lucas."
A monitor beeped steadily beside them.
Emily whispered, "What happened when you said it?"
May you like
Maya's eyes filled with fear.
"He started crying."
